Noble Dharma

If you missed part 1,  click Here for the whole story.

The Story of Aaliyah, part two

For the next couple of days there was a sadness for Aaliyah deeper than any sadness she had ever known.  Though the forest was as bright as it had ever been, it’s beauty was hidden from her by the cloud of her thoughts.  Though there had been bright colored birds everywhere around her singing beautifully, there was not a bird song to be heard except for the occasional cry of a hawk far, far in the distance.   Everything she had done with great pleasure from gathering food to arranging her bed of leaves for the night she now did with disinterest.

There were coconuts high up in the trees but they were too high for her to reach.  Long vines grew up some of these trees and she had discovered that by tugging on these vines she could loosen a few of the coconuts so they would fall to the ground.  But now when she tried this she had no success.  She tugged and tugged and shook the tree more and more violenty, grunting and shouting, but no coconuts fell.   Finally the vine broke high up in the tree, Aaliyah fell to the ground on her back, the vine fell into a pile on top of her and one of the coconuts fell to the ground almost hitting her in the head.  “Wow,” she thought, “these vines are really strong and they bend nicely”.  Then she had an idea.  Continue reading →

“So, Bob, you’ve committed to writing a series of clues to unraveling the mysteries of our suffering and thereby it’s end.  For God’s sake why?”
“Well, I…”
“Wouldn’t you much rather be out in your kayak or making music than collecting images and writing blogs?”
“Well yeah, but…”
“And your meditation practice has gone to pot.  You spend most of every session with your mind running wild composing, re-wording, searching for clever ways to express yourself.”
“Well, I’m not sure how to put it…maybe… Well, if you find a gold mine there are two obvious things you can do.  You could not tell anyone and keep it all for yourself, or you could…well, maybe that would best be described with a story.”

The Story of Aaliyah, Part One

There was a girl named Aaliyah who lived in a remote village where no one had any knowledge of the world beyond the mountains that surrounded them.  The villagers had a small herd of cattle and otherwise survived on game brought back by the men from their hunting trips and vegetables that the women grew in their gardens.  Once a rather strange man paid a visit to the village.   He didn’t speak their language very well, but asked a lot of questions.  He would take out a stack of square white sheets which he called a “pad” and make marks on them with a stick he called a “pencil”.  One day when the men were off hunting, he asked questions of the women who were digging root vegetables they had planted.

“Do any of the women ever go on hunting trips?”
“Oh no!  The men would never allow that!”
“Do the men ever help with the gardening?”
The women laughed and laughed.  Some of them were rolling on the ground in hysterics.  “Oh no!  How silly.  They wouldn’t know how!  The men are really stupid about plants.”

Life was pretty good in the village, but one year there was much less rain than usual.  The crops were barely enough to keep everyone fed, and the game the men hunted was getting more scarce.  The following year was even worse.  Time after time the men would return to the village empty handed.  By the end of the year all of the small herd of cattle had been slaughtered to feed the hungry villagers.  There was no longer any food to be had and not a drop of rain to moisten the parched land.

Aaliyah became more and more despondent seeing her friends and family starving.  She had always been enthusiastic Continue reading →